


Sisyphus

by jannah (fromjannah)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Dynamics, Gen, Greek Mythology References, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, because techno is a nerd, facing the crushing guilt of killing your son, nobody knows about ghostbur basically, not actually RPF, spreading my technoblade with glasses agenda, wilbur soot was the overlooked middle child and i'm making it YOUR problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29206848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromjannah/pseuds/jannah
Summary: Phil looks back on his relationship with his dead son, Wilbur, and wonders where he went wrong.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Tommyinnit & Technoblade & Phil Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Sisyphus

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I wasn't going to write fic for the SMP. I promised myself. But no. I am not a clown, I am the entire circus. 
> 
> The main canon divergence we have here is that Ghostbur was basically never around everyone, or so everyone thinks. You'll figure it out. I believe in you. Also, despite being a Tubbo apologist (please don't @ me), I managed to completely forget that he grew up with SBI in canon, so let's pretend that he didn't in this scenario and was just around loads.
> 
> This is about the characters from the SMP, not the actual streamers themselves.
> 
> This might become a series. Who knows.
> 
> This was beta read by my lovely friend Clarke. You're the best, my dude.

Wilbur was playing one of his songs again. He was always playing his songs these days on Phil's old guitar; while Tommy and Techno were out training with Phil, Wilbur refused to join them, instead opting to read up on history, write troves of songs, sing more or less to himself, and play the guitar. 

Phil tried not to mind, he did his level best not to mind, even though the music often interrupted his sleep like tonight. No, it was just that Phil wasn't ever very good at playing the guitar or singing and certainly not writing songs and he never had a penchant for history. As Wilbur got older, Phil found it more and more difficult to connect with his son -- they got into more and more arguments and Wilbur wrote harsher and harsher songs and then they wouldn't speak for days on end. 

The song that Wilbur was playing now sounded new, and it was just bits of guitar, no singing. It was a loop of similar notes over and over again with the bass moving up, maybe?

Despite it being relatively calming, it was grating on Phil's nerves for no good reason. Maybe it was because he couldn't hear any singing, it was just the repetition of the notes in a loop, over and over and over --

Phil got up from his bed, rubbing at his eyes. It was awfully cold for some reason, he realized back of his mind, but he was only focused on the damned song. God, why was it just repeating the same bit over and over again? 

He stumbled through the hallway. Where the hell was Wilbur's room? Had he forgotten how to navigate his own home? He shivered involuntarily as he squinted around, trying to follow the sound.

"Phil?" asked a voice that was decidedly not Wilbur. "What're you doin' up?" 

A light flicked on the hallway and Phil held up a hand against the sudden flash, blinking rapidly. Techno was standing outside of a room, hair in a plait and lips pulled into a frown over his jutting-out incisors. "Is something goin' on? Is it Ranboo?" he asked, looking over Phil. 

Phil froze in place, heartbeat beating faster and faster suddenly as he looked at Techno. Something was wrong. Why was he so tall? Why did he look older? Where did that scar across his face come from? Phil gripped the bottom of his nightshirt, fisting the fabric into his hands, _thump thump thump_ s going off in his ears. He swallowed dryly, breathing going shallow.

_Do it, Phil._

The realization came to him in a flash. He was in the Arctic. This was not the home where he had raised the three boys, this was Techno's cabin.

Wilbur was not playing guitar in his room. He was dead.

Techno was still puzzling over him over a pair of thin wire-rimmed glasses. Phil cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair, trying not to make it too obvious that he had woken up in a completely lost state, brain stuck halfway in the past. "Just, erm, just thought I heard something," he finally mustered up. "It's -- it's all fine, Techno. Go back to bed."

Techno's expression twisted slightly at that, as if about to protest, but finally decided not to. "Alright," he muttered, turning around. 

Phil pinched the bridge of his nose as he swatted at the light to turn it off. Goddamnit, he was going mad. Literally mad.

\---

"I'm _booored_ ," proclaimed Tommy loudly, bouncing in his bed. "Tech, can you tell me a story?" 

"Aw, c'mon, Tommy," Techno groaned, one of his flat ears flicking in irritation. "We just finished _Journey to the West_ last week. Wilbur can tell you a story."

Wilbur shot him a glare from his place on the floor with his guitar, working out a bit of fingerstyle. "No. I'm busy," he said, with little room for argument. 

"He's always busy," Tommy told Techno bitterly. "Never plays with me anymore." 

"I don't want to play with you because you're a _child_ ," snapped Wilbur as he played a wrong note in annoyance. He was a few months into thirteen and believing that he was more mature than everyone. Phil remembered this phase of his. It had been exhausting. 

"Not a child!" yelled Tommy in immediate protest, pointing an accusatory finger. 

Techno reached out a calloused hand and scuffed Tommy's head teasingly. "You're kinda a child. Super short."

Tommy crossed his arms angrily and wrinkled up his nose. "Just wait 'til I'm older," he said in by means of a threat. "I'll get so tall. Taller than both of you." 

Techno and Wilbur shared a skeptical look. Techno had shot up like a weed over the last couple of years, and Wilbur's trousers were inching up higher and higher, showing his ankles. Tommy would get plenty tall, though; not as tall as Tommy and Techno, but ending up just a couple of inches under them, Phil knew.

"Alright, I'll tell you a story," Techno sighed out finally, seeing Tommy's sullen state, which instantly vanished at the words. "Let's talk about Sisyphus." 

"Sisyphus?" repeated Tommy, fumbling with the name on his tongue. "Was he a hero?" 

Tommy always loved his heroes, knights in shining gold. Techno tilted his head in contemplation. "He was a trickster. And a king. And he got doomed forever." 

Tommy wilted slightly but didn't protest. Wilbur looked over in thinly veiled interest, quitting his playing. _He_ always loved his tragic protagonists, his doomed rulers. When Phil was particularly melancholy or perhaps a bit vengeful, he sometimes likened his second son to Hamlet. 

Techno's voice went into a lull; it had been deepening some since his sixteenth birthday and it was especially evident whenever he told stories. He painted a vivid tale of king of sly Corinth, Homer's most cunning man, dying and descending to the Underworld, but then chaining up Thanatos.

"Thanatos?" queried Tommy, drawing his knees up to his chest.

"Death," murmured Wilbur before Techno could, dark brown eyes shining in interest. "He captured Death." 

Tommy's mouth opened in a small _o_ in wonder _,_ and Techno rolled his eyes briefly at Wilbur for interrupting his flow before going on. Death was freed by Ares, but Sisyphus managed to escape from the Underworld, he narrated, telling of the protagonist dying again, but managing to pull another trick: Sisyphus told his wife to wife to make sure not to do proper rituals after he would die. So he pleaded with Persephone, queen of the Underworld, to let him go back to the land of the living, to make sure that the rituals were performed, and then he would come back down and face Hades.

"But he didn't," guessed Tommy. "He just stayed up in his kingdom." 

Techno nodded. "He didn't die for ages, until he was really old, because Thanatos was scared of him."

"Death was scared to take his soul," Wilbur repeated, as if in awe. He always got caught up in stories, admiring people he shouldn't have. Phil wondered if that had been indicative of something that he should've seen sooner. 

But he finally did die once more, Techno explained, and Zeus personally made sure that he would be punished for finessing the system. Sisyphus was doomed to push a boulder over a crest, but he could never fully push it over; as soon as he was about to knock is onto the other side of the mountain, the boulder's weight was tumble down and force Sisyphus to work forever in pain.

"So, Tommy," finished Techno brightly, breaking the spell, "die when you're supposed to die, alright?" 

Tommy shoved his eldest brother's shoulder, though it was clear that he had been caught up all in it. "Yeah, yeah." 

"And go to sleep when you're supposed to sleep," chided Phil finally, from the doorway, where none of the boys had bothered to look up to. They all did look up now, though, guiltily. "I thought bedtime was half an hour ago, boys." 

"My bedtime should be later than Tommy's," grumbled Wilbur, but he stood up.

Techno _hah-_ edshortly. "C'mon, Phil, if any of us should be sleepin' later, it should be me." 

Phil rolled his eyes fondly but shook his head. "You have training in the mornings, Techno, and you're all growing boys! Now, come on, bedtime."

Phil clapped a hand on Techno's shoulder to express his thanks for entertaining Tommy, who nodded with a slight note of surprise; he had been staying around with their family for nearly five years now, but he always got caught off guard when Phil expressed his approval. Wilbur saw the gesture and narrowed his eyes slightly, darting out of the room before getting a goodnight. 

Phil tucked in Tommy gently, though the protests of _I'm_ eleven, _now, Dad, you don't have to!_ came forth. 

His relationship with his sons were all a bit tumultuous in parts, he thought then, but at least they were all so close with each other. Really, for that one thing, he was willing to endure the rough years of adolescence. 

\---

That next morning, Phil flipped through Techno's prized copy of the _Odyssey,_ running a finger over the worn pages. He could still hear Wilbur's voice in his ears, echoing in both sides of his head: younger Wilbur lashing out in anger in the past over _no, Dad, I'm not going to fight like Techno and Tommy, I'm not like that, can you just realize that!_ in his left ear,elder Wilbur begging him, daring him to _do it, Phil, kill me_ to his right _._ Over all of it was that damned tune that Phil had heard last night.

He exhaled slowly, trying to block it all out as he shut the _Odyssey_. He laughed to himself bitterly. Trying to bond with Wilbur, stay on good terms with him, just see eye-to-eye with him, it had all been quite a Sisyphean task.

He just wished he could've apologized. He'd pleaded to Wilbur so many times over the years. Just never for his forgiveness.

The cold winter sunlight streamed through a window. Phil knew it was his eyes playing tricks on him, but he could've sworn that he had saw his son then for the briefest moment -- sallow-skinned and nearly swallowed up by a large, bloodied sweater, eyes empty and clearish colored, staring right at him.

Phil shook his head as the illusion vanished, hitting himself lightly on the side of his head _._ God, he really was going mad. 

**Author's Note:**

> Usually I just say to kudo, comment, share, and subscribe to Technoblade, but I have a lot of feelings about this one, so I'm going to ramble a bit. You probably don't care, so just drop me a kudo and maybe share this if you're feeling especially nice (I don't have a Tumblr or anything please get me clout). Thanks for getting all the way here. 
> 
> MCYT fic writers often paint Phil as the perfect father, which I enjoy (especially because those fics often make me overly emotional), but I felt like that interpretation just wasn't right for this. I thought back to Wilbur forming L'manburg and his pro-diplomacy ideologies and thought "hmm, where did those come from?" and they became daddy issues. Whoops.
> 
> I like the idea of Wilbur being a super angsty teen. Dude was a pretty angsty adult anyway. Sue me. 
> 
> During the flashback, Tommy was eleven, Wilbur was thirteen, and Techno was sixteen -- yes this places Wil as roughly eighteen during canon. Please don't ask me about Fundy. I choose to ignore Wil being Fundy's father whenever I can. It hurts my brain. 
> 
> My siblings and I, despite being different ages (all roughly three years apart), all often go to sleep at the same time, like the SBI boys in this. We're weak little kids. 
> 
> Techno was adopted by Phil or something. I think it was because Phil was training him to do Warrior Stuff (mentor Phil is a very neat idea to me, especially when one of his sons isn't interested in that knowledge). I don't know, man, leave me alone. 
> 
> I was going to make the analogy of Sisyphus and his rock be compared to Phil and raising the kids (which it could still be!) but then I remembered that Sisyphus had three lives which he ended up suffering for so I immediately changed the narrative to Wilbur. It was the best coincidence of my life. I'm unironically super proud of it.
> 
> I imagined the song that was played in the beginning being 'Jubilee Line' by the real Wilbur Soot.
> 
> This fic was actually a way to spread my Technoblade Wears Glasses agenda. Please help me spread it forth. 
> 
> I like the idea of all the SBI boys being super into stories, especially Techno and myths. Dude probably read the Iliad a dozen times. 
> 
> The animatic "Little Solider Boy" by Obscuritea (https://youtu.be/9QKgUlG429Q) was a bit of an inspo for this. Shout-out to MCYT animators, y'all are the ones who dragged me into this mess.
> 
> If you've gotten this far down and read everything, you're the raddest. Thanks for reading.


End file.
